Four Seasons

With a year-round population of just over 900 people, Block Island is not just a summer vacation spot. There people — young and old — who call Block Island home for 12 months out of the year. There are also people who come to block Island for the entire summer — to visit family, stay at their...

1. THE NORTH LIGHT is the fourth lighthouse built on Sandy Point. The first, finished in 1829, was washed away in a few years. A second light began operation in 1837, but was not visible to ships due to the shifting sands. The government built a third light near the end of the Point in 1857 and...

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the annual Holiday Shopping Stroll, a three-day event that will have some 30 stores and art galleries decorating their windows and opening their doors for a unique Block Island shopping experience — one that often comes with a cup of hot cider, cocoa and a...

The path to the North Light Fibers mill, store and farm is marked by the sight of exotic animals from Abrams Animal Farm in the periphery: the cool stare of the caged lemur, a llama eating kibble from a child’s hand, even kangaroos and a giant tortoise stand by. Walk past these animals and through...

Though it’s been many years since I first sat down with Michael Oppenheimer on the open porch of his West Side island home, finding him there several weeks ago felt quite natural. The familiarity of the setting allows us to fall easily into conversation while looking out at rolling hillsides...

Tiffany Hewitt on the ferry Anna C. Q:How long have you been bartending on the ferry? A:I've been working for Interstate 17 years. I started out answering phones and selling tickets and in the summer of '98 I started bartending. The owner Sue Linda is my great aunt. My mom worked with Sue...

This summer, three food trucks have opened around the island after the town rewrote an ordinance to add more licenses. In previous years, there had been one Hawkers and Peddlers license, for a food cart at Settlers’ Rock. In August last year the Town Council voted 4 to 1 to allow up to three of the...

Eben Horton is a glass artist and the owner of The Glass Station, a 1920’s-style glass studio located in Wakefield, Rhode Island. He created “The Glass Float Project” on Block Island where he has hidden hundreds of glass floats along Greenway trails and beaches. Islanders and tourists set out to...

On winter mornings when even the sun has difficulty deciding whether it should rise, almost nothing stirs on Block Island, not man nor beast nor machine. On our road, unless the transfer station is open, Howie’s yellow school bus is often the first and only vehicle to pass by my house until mid...

The group of volunteers meets at a most civil hour – 9 a.m. at the office of The Nature Conservancy on High Street. On this Wednesday there are a dozen. Some have done this for years, some, such as this writer are first timers. They are quite good natured for an army, and quite welcoming of the new...

The Not New Boutique is a signature island rummage sale event. It used to run once or twice a summer, now it is open every Wednesday through the tourist season. For weeks ahead of its opening date, we year-rounders search through our closets for clothing we no longer can use and then drop it into a...

When it comes to special occasion dining on Block Island, the Atlantic Inn is on everyone’s list. But you shouldn’t wait for an anniversary or mortgage payoff to head to the beautiful old Victorian at the highest point on High Street, say the owners. They want their restaurant to be on everyone’s...

Gary Ryan became a town councilor this past December and he’s been a member of the Rescue Squad out here for 25 years. But most of us know Gary best as the knowledgeable butcher and friendly face behind the deli counter at the Block Island Grocery store. We caught up with him recently at the BIG...

The winter has seen the explosion of snowy owls in the Arctic and a subsequent migration to the lower 48 states in search of food. Snowy owls have been showing up in places that have never seen a snowy owl before. These magnificent birds started to appear all over the United States right around...

Danielle Duffy Owner, Elevation Studion and Cafe In the summer of 1992, I was a college student in New Paltz, N.Y. An urge for a road trip to the ocean found me in Fisherman’s State Park in Narragansett, R.I. I woke up and was heading to the beach and from the next campsite I heard, “You should...

Block Island is a great place to train, whether it’s on the beach, on the roads, or in the water. The island is a small slice of heaven, particularly when viewed from an athlete’s perspective. It offers a respite from crowded city sidewalks and an alternative to doing laps in a pool. For the same...

The bare, windswept shores of the island appear in sharp relief against the iron-grey sea. Block Island is stunning, even in the depths of winter’s grasp: an unspoiled haven of natural beauty. On such a day, it might appear bereft of human habitation. Yet Block Island in winter is not simply the...

In October of 2013, photographer Grace Bochain Luddy began blogging about her life on Block Island. What has resulted is a compendium of photos and verse chronicling her experiences on the smallest island belonging to the smallest state. With her permission, we present here, a recent entry. I LIKE...

If this is the first time venturing out into the breaks of Block Island, you have some decisions to make. Are you going to want a short board or long? Maybe you want to cut your teeth with a stand up paddle board (SUP), remaining completely out of the water (unless you take a spill), or stay on...

Penny Riordan Block Island Chamber of Commerce I first came to the island in 1972 with my husband and daughter for a weeklong summer vacation. We all fell in love with it — the biking, the beaches, the places for quiet reflection. From then on, we vacationed on Block Island every year, eventually...

Joe Sprague has been farming and raising cattle for many years. “I grew up with cows,” he says. “The only thing that’s always been in my life, all 56 years of it, is cows.” Many island denizens know Sprague—he might have dug the foundation for their new house or garage, or brought over a load of...

For the past three summers, I have watched as a dozen or so women, my mother among them, embarked on the challenge of walking the entire perimeter of the island. So this summer, when I was encouraged to join them in their “adventure,” as they call it, I agreed without thinking much about what...